


In The Wee Small Hours

by parisian_girl



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 13:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15340968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parisian_girl/pseuds/parisian_girl
Summary: It's 3am, and Phryne can't sleep. Reunion fic - kind of - inspired by Frank Sinatra's 'In the wee small hours of the morning'. Otherwise known as 1000 words of pure romantic cliché.





	In The Wee Small Hours

**Author's Note:**

> If you've never heard this song (originally Frank Sinatra, I think, but covered several times since), go listen :). Better still, listen while you read...
> 
> Just a short drabble-type thing that came to me, unsurprisingly, at around 3am ;). Unedited and unbetaed, as usual, so all mistakes are mine. Enjoy!

_In the wee small hours of the morning,_  
_When the whole wide world is fast asleep_  
_You lie awake, and think about the boy  
And never ever think of counting sheep_

 _When your lonely heart has learned its lesson_  
_You’d be his if only he would call_  
_In_ _the wee small hours of the morning  
That’s the time you miss him most of all._

**********

 

For the third night in a row, Phryne Fisher couldn’t sleep.

Heat prickled her skin, covering her in tiny beads of sweat that trickled down her arms, along her collarbone, underneath her bare breasts, sticking her hair to her head and pooling on the sheet beneath her. Turning over to find a cool patch of pillow did no good as she just created a new damp patch as she went, and the normally soft cotton felt harsh and sticky as it rubbed against her body. The window was open, but the heat was so oppressive that even the air had stopped breathing. The scent of the garden flowers that Dot had picked for her return hung in the air, no longer fresh but cloying and heavy, and she imagined that she could still smell the cocktails and whisky of her welcome home gathering, clinging to the pores of the house like the fierce summer sun.

She had been so glad to leave the damp and fog of the London winter. Two months of insidious drizzle that seemed to creep under every protection she wrapped around herself, not to mention her efforts to help mend her parents’ marriage and financial situation, had left her depressed, cold, and more homesick than she had ever been in her life. She had missed Melbourne. She had missed her home, and the little family she had gathered within its walls. She had missed Mac. She had missed driving her car - English roads, drivers, and cars were all terrible, and the one time she had borrowed a car to escape into the country for a few days she had been dismayed to discover that, not only did the road have enough deep potholes to swallow a pushbike, but the car could not even go faster than twenty miles an hour. It had taken her almost all day to reach Devon, and the rain had continued for the whole disastrous weekend.

Most of all, she had missed Jack.

She had thought of him a lot. She hadn’t been able to help it. His half smile in her mind’s eye had kept her going during the arduous flight to England, when she had desperately wanted to loop-the-loop and tip her father out. Her body always responded to the memory of his lips on hers, and those delicious shivers had kept her sane - perhaps not entirely appropriately - during dreary days and lonely nights and the mind-numbing round of parties and soirées she had been expected to attend and that normally she would have loved.

The prodigal daughter, flying home, and all she had wanted to do was fly back to Jack’s arms.

She had never sent him a telegram. It was totally out of character for her, but in the eerie dark stillness of a London pea-souper, alone in her bed, she had found the courage to admit that she was scared. Those memories of him were so precious. She hadn’t been able to face the possible reality that he might not want her in the same way that she now knew she wanted him, that she might have left it too late, that he might not wait for her, that for him it might have been just a kiss and nothing more. She hadn’t wanted to see it typed on a flimsy piece of paper, hard evidence in front of her eyes. And so she had clung on to a fading image of a man in a trench coat and fedora hat, the brim hiding the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, standing in the long grass of an Australian airfield and watching as she flew away, keeping her silence and holding her memories.

He had not come to her party. Hugh had said he was working, in the middle of a sensitive case that needed all his attention, and she had smiled and nodded and accepted it without question. The champagne and cocktails had flowed. Mr Butler’s cooking had been outstanding. She had been surrounded by love and laughter and so much happiness - all for her and her safe return to where she belonged - but none of that could fill the gaping hole his absence had left. None of it could stop her wondering why he wasn’t there and yet, once again, she hadn’t been able to face going to find him. This time, she hadn’t wanted to see his face as he made his excuses.

When she heard the clock softly strike for 3am, she groaned, burying her face into the sweaty pillow beneath her head. The darkness of the late summer heatwave here seemed to bring him alive far more vividly than all those cold nights in London. Her skin flared at his imagined touch, her whole body reaching for the thought of him beside her, and for the last two nights her fingers had barely managed to take the edge off. She had found more of a release in the frustrated tears that had followed, knowing that he was closer to her physically than he had been for months and yet somehow further away than she had ever known him, but she didn’t want to do that tonight. Crawling to the side of the bed, she dragged herself up and to the window, pulling a light silk robe around her shoulders as she went. Sticking her head out into the night air made no real difference. There was no freshening breeze, no scent of light summer rain to cool her clammy skin. But she didn’t want to toss and turn until the dawn again.

It took her a moment to register the shadowy outline of the car, tucked under the tree slightly along the street, and another moment to feel the pang of familiarity hit her squarely in the chest. The questions slid slowly across her mind like treacle, slowed by the heat and by exhaustion. What? Why? How long?

The one question she didn’t need to ask was who.

_Jack._

  
*********

He met her at the gate. She had run down the stairs and outside, barefoot and with only the robe around her, without a trace of lipstick and - she imagined - with her hair sticking up in all directions, but she didn’t care. As she hurried through the door and down the path, she didn’t know what she would do. Simply ask him why he was there when it was so late? Let spill some of the anger she had felt towards him for not being there and towards herself for wanting him there so badly? Throw herself into his arms and hope that was what he wanted too? But as she reached the gate, his face cleared from the shadows and she slowed her steps. Those eyes. That smile. They were, she realised, all she had dreamed about for months.

“Hello, Jack.”

He took off his hat, his long fingers fiddling with the brim nervously. He wore no coat - his only concession to the heat - but everything else was reassuringly familiar. The dark jacket, the blue tie that was one of her favourites. He looked tired, though, as if he had just finished work, and suddenly it dawned on her that he probably had. He had wrapped up his case, and he had come to Wardlow like he always did despite the late hour, and despite knowing that she would be in bed. He had come because her home and her company had become his salve after an investigation, their nightcaps a ritual, and he had wanted at least some of the familiarity, even if he had to sit outside in the car to get it.

“Is it too late?”

The quiet rumble of his voice sent shivers through her despite the heat, and she closed her eyes momentarily. She had dreamed about that voice too. His words seemed familiar, as if from a dream, and her whole body softened as she stepped towards him. How many times had he done this, she wondered? Come here to be close to her while she was half a world away?

Darling man.

“Never.”

Her voice was soft as she reached for him, repeating the reassurance that now seemed to mean so much more.

“Never.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
